Vonnegut’s rules for short story writing

One of Kurt Vonnegut’s eight rules for writing short stories:

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

Ayup. See also How to Write With Style.

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Writing with style

Kurt Vonnegut shares his tips on how to write with style.

5. Sound like yourself. The writing style which is most natural for you is bound to echo the speech you heard when a child. English was Conrad’s third language, and much that seems piquant in his use of English was no doubt colored by his first language, which was Polish. And lucky indeed is the writer who has grown up in Ireland, for the English spoken there is so amusing and musical. I myself grew up in Indianapolis, where common speech sounds like a band saw cutting galvanized tin, and employs a vocabulary as unornamental as a monkey wrench.

(via chris glass)

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Kurt Vonnegut, RIP. So it goes.

Kurt Vonnegut, RIP. So it goes.

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